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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Ulm and a Catch up

About a week or so ago on one of Kyle's days off we headed to Ulm, a town an hour away right in between Stuttgart and Munich. It is a beautiful town on the Danube river that was established in 850. Unfortunately, during WWII bombing, much of the city was destroyed. Luckily and amazingly, the Gothic cathedral with the world's highest church steeple was spared damage.

Ulm was the birthplace of Albert Einstein. His house was destroyed during the firebombing in 1944, but a memorial stands in it's place. During the rise of the Nazi's, Einstein renounced his German citizenship and would have nothing to do with Germany, even after the war ended.

Einstein Memorial Marking his Former Home

While Kyle and I were strolling the streets of Ulm, we ran into a delusional woman. She came up to us and first started asking us something in German. She quickly found out that we don't speak German, and asked where we were from. We answered, "The US." In a calm, soft spoken voice, she proceeded to say, "Did you know the US started WWII? Obama found this out. Bye, Bye." She quickly turned around and left, not even giving us the time to politely refute her statement, although our jaws were hanging so low and our minds were so in shock that it probably would have taken at least five minutes to fully comprehend what she just said and come up with a response. What do you even say to that?? There must be an asylum somewhere in Ulm with the bars pried apart and a broken window.

Despite our weird encounter, we fully enjoyed our day taking in the sights.

One of the Most Beautiful Rathauses in Germany

This Tower Dates Back to the 11th Cenury

According to the Guinness Book of World Records this is the most crooked house

Posing on the Medieval Wall

A few days later, we met up with our friend and my former IU roomie, Heather, in Ingolstadt (where Frankenstein created his monster) for some shopping and catching up. The shopping wasn't overly successful, but it was great to catch up with Heather!

A couple of weeks ago we headed to the nearby town of Sindelfingen for the International Festival. There were tons of food and drink vendors with a huge assortment of foods like, curry, paella, crepes, kebobs, and pretty much anything you could think of. There were a lot of performances from different nationalities. Very fun!

And lastly, we were treated to our first German summer storm. Kyle caught this picture out of our upstairs window.